The Spectator opinion piece, by Andrew Gilligan, on UK Politics, 21 April 2026

6.0out of 10Serious

Meet the Green candidate who thinks Zionists killed 20 million Christians

Tap a highlight to see why it matters.2 findings

A Green Party council candidate in Bournemouth says “the Zionists killed 20 million Christians” and are “trying to control the world.” Feda Shahin, who is standing for the Central ward on Bournemouth town council, leads a group which caused significant national controversy by picketing the family home of the town’s then Tory MP, Tobias Ellwood, in February 2024. This ridiculous claim appears to be based on the fact that some leaders of the Russian revolution, such as Trotsky, were Jewish The Palestine Solidarity Movement, a local Bournemouth-based activist group, organised about 80 people to mass outside the MP’s house after dark, chanting: “Tobias Ellwood, you can’t hide, you signed up for genocide.”

Ellwood said: “Advertising [my] private address to mobilise an aggressive, intimidating rally at an MP’s property… for me is a step too far. MPs cannot be fair game to be directly attacked in this way.” The Palestine Solidarity Movement also picketed Ellwood as he went about other business in the town, calling him a “war criminal.” Shahin is the Palestine Solidarity Movement’s “secretary general,” and was prominent in it in Bournemouth at the time of the Ellwood picket, though it is not clear whether she attended the event at his house.

Speaking at another rally of the group in February 2026, she said that the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s private island “is a symbol of the headquarters of the Zionists who are trying to control the world.” She has also accused Israel of being a country that “sucks the blood of [Palestinian] children,” one of the classic anti-semitic blood libels. The Palestine Solidarity Movement’s X account reposts , saying that “Israel must be dismantled… its population must be de-Zionised.”

In 2025, Shahin said: “Before the Holocaust… do you know that the Zionists, before that, actually, during the Bolshevik [period], killed 20 million Christians. The committee that decided to kill these 20 million Christians had 500 people [on it], 480 of these people were Zionists.” Most popular This ridiculous claim appears to be based on the fact that some leaders of the Russian revolution, such as Trotsky and Zinoviev, were Jewish – though about 90 per cent, including Lenin and Stalin, were not (one of Lenin’s grandparents was a Jewish convert to Christianity, but he was raised in the Russian Orthodox faith.)

Even the Jewish revolutionaries were, however, fundamentally opposed to Zionism, seeing it as bourgeois and nationalist. No doubt this is another of those times when the Z-word acts as a synonym for Jews. Shahin’s “committee” may be the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, the USSR’s nominal ruling body, but this never had as many as 500 members, and very few of them were Jewish. Millions of people were indeed killed by the regime in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, but they included both Trotsky and Zinoviev, as well as most of the other early Jewish Bolsheviks.

Shahin’s rantings are a rehash of the conspiracy theory of Judeo-Bolshevism, itself an adaptation of a supposed plot for Jewish world domination outlined in the pre-revolutionary anti-semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Judeo-Bolshevism was used by the Nazis to justify their invasion of Russia. Never mind all that, though. We have the Greens’ word for it that Shahin is “committed to building a safe, inclusive community” which “brings people together with a collaborative approach.”

Shahin is . Shahin declined to comment. The Green Party said: “Where there are examples brought to our attention that do not fit in with the views of the Green Party, we are looking into them.” Like the other four, Shahin remains an officially-endorsed Green candidate.

Read the original article on spectator.com (opens in a new tab)
What we found (2)

The Spectator debunks a Green council candidate's Bolshevik claim on its own facts. It calls a repost by her group a call for ethnic cleansing when the quoted words say nothing of expulsion. Its own count of Green candidates it has exposed does not hold together, giving four in one sentence and five in another.

NewsCord staff selected this article for review and pointed the model at passages to examine. Every finding quotes the article.

Opinion piece: read for false claims of fact and for fairness to the people it names, not for its opinions.

  1. Smears a named person

    Serious

    “what appears to be a call for ethnic cleansing”

    Why this matters
    The Spectator calls a repost by the Palestine Solidarity Movement 'a call for ethnic cleansing'. This is a grave charge against a named organisation, softened only by 'appears to be'.
    The impression it gives
    A reader believes the group backed the expulsion of Israel's population.
    The context
    The quoted words call for a state to be 'dismantled' and its population to be 'de-Zionised'. Neither says anyone should be expelled. The Spectator's own text treats Zionism as an ideology people can oppose, not an ethnicity. An ellipsis also cuts the quote at the point where the charge rests, so the reader cannot check the missing words.

    How we know

    • Elsewhere in the article“fundamentally opposed to Zionism, seeing it as bourgeois and nationalist”

    Show it in the article

    Written straight

    The Palestine Solidarity Movement's X account has reposted a post saying 'Israel must be dismantled… its population must be de-Zionised.'

  2. Uses figures that mislead

    Minor

    “the fourth Green candidate in just over a week to be exposed by The Spectator for promoting extreme views”

    Why this matters
    The Spectator counts Shahin as the fourth candidate it has 'exposed' for 'extreme views'. It names none of the others and shows none of their views.
    The impression it gives
    A reader believes there is an established run of Green candidates with extreme views, and takes the count on trust.
    The context
    The article's own count does not hold together. Three sentences later it calls them 'the other four', which makes five. The reader is given no way to check either number.

    How we know

    • Elsewhere in the article“Like the other four, Shahin remains”

    Show it in the article

Spot something we missed? Report this article

More from The Spectator

  1. 26 AugMiddle East Eye seems to get stupider and stupider6.0
  2. 25 AugFarah Ahmed: study engineering ‘to produce weaponry for Jihad’3.0
  3. 18 AugCambridge University-linked project erases Israel6.0
  4. 15 AugWhy is Cambridge platforming Islamic creationism?3.0
  5. 11 AugMeet Farah Ahmed, Jason Arday’s colleague3.0

Everything we scored from The Spectator